


To Fill the Void

by angeloscastiel



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 18:27:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeloscastiel/pseuds/angeloscastiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire Novak believes in angels that destroy more than they heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Fill the Void

There is a certain mental image one conjures at the thought of teenage girls who believe in angels, and once upon a time, Claire Novak may have fit it. Quiet, unassuming; straight blonde hair pushed away from her face with a plain headband, single stud in each ear that match her lear, earnest blue eyes. She believes in angels, she will say in a voice that is almost mechanical, but you would be forgiven for missing it because no girl who believes in angels, with an innocence that seems to glow around her, could possibly have such deadness in her words.

Claire Novak believes in angels, but so do demons.

The angels she believes in are not kindly. They do not sing in heavenly choirs and play golden harps or perch on the shoulders of saints. The angels she believes in are terrifying, they are single-minded in their purpose and burn with righteousness. The angels she believes in course through your veins and make your blood sing and bathe the entire universe in light.

She hates and loves these angels in equal measure.

Claire Novak is empty in a way she would never have realised if it wasn’t for the angel who left a hole inside her that he had created. A hole that is impossible to fill except for his grace; a black hole that is consuming her from the inside out, sucking her identity and her happiness into its void.

She is fifteen when she cuts off her straight blonde hair and lines her eyes in black, and they stop asking her whether she believes in angels because they can tell that something has died inside her. She is sixteen when she walks out of her house and does not look back, and she dyes her hair and pierces her lip and walks in high heeled boots that hurt her feet.

She is seventeen when she gives up praying forever, and she buries a box at a crossroads with her photo inside, and she sells not her soul but her skin. And she is no longer her own, and there is a fire coursing through her that is like molten lava, thick and smoking and burning and nothing like the ethereal flame of Castiel but it is something, and it seeps into the hole inside her and sets there, cold and black and heavy as stone.

She is a friend and her name is Rose, and she is icy and glittering and she whispers to Claire in the darkness and cloaks Claire’s eyes when the horror is too much, and her voice is calm and soothing and manipulative but Claire does not care, because the demon has never taken anything from her that she has not freely offered.

Rose is exorcised after six months but there are others, and some leave her in a panic and some are exorcised, and hunters and clergymen look at her with sympathy and wrap a blanket around her shoulders and tell her that everything will be okay, because Claire with her bright blue eyes and belief in angels could not possibly have invited a demon in.

The last demon is called Abaddon and she is a knight of Hell, and Claire can feel the power bubbling up within her when the demon takes possession and she knows, she knows this is Castiel all over again because nothing will quite compare to this, to the energy pulsing through her and the red haze clouding her thoughts and the taunting laughter which pours from her mocking lips. And Abaddon leads her across the world and they leave a trail of destruction in their wake, and on a sundrenched park bench in the early morning they come across a lone man watching the birds, and Claire stops dead but Abaddon walks her forward and her lips part in that taunting smile.

There is a knife in Claire’s hand, shining silver and cold and Claire knows what it is because these hands have held this blade before, and she hears Abaddon’s cold voice whispering _it’s almost poetic, to kill him like this_ and there is a certainty, a confidence driving her as she relinquishes control to Claire, because this is Claire’s revenge and Abaddon knows this, knows the cold, twisted fury in the girl’s soul and that she will not fail Hell’s plan.

Castiel no longer hums with grace and his wings do not stretch out majestically behind him. He is merely a man, a broken man wearing her father’s skin and his earnest blue eyes meet her cold, dead ones.

He is resigned to his fate. He will accept it willingly because his penance must be completed, and a stab of annoyance at his goodness, his _righteousness_ , pierces the thick armour of hatred she has constructed around her soul. She cannot drive the sword he once held into his mortal heart, and Abaddon reels at her betrayal and she is fighting, fighting for the control of her own hand and for a moment she sees her father in Castiel’s eyes and she knows, she _knows_ she is out of options.

In the brief, terrifying moment before the sword clutched in her hand claims her life, she wonders if she will ever _rest forever in the fields of the Lord_.

 


End file.
